


「Truth or Dare」

by Shapelybutts



Category: Japanese History RPF, Japanese Mythology, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Bakugou Katsuki is a Bad Friend, Demons, Douman was kinda real too, Ghosts, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Honestly? I hate Bakugou, Japanese History - Freeform, Japanese Mythology - Freeform, Midoriya Izuku Has Issues, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Sees Ghosts, Monsters, Oishi Kuranosuke was a real person, Youkai, all that lot, he was abe semai's rival, he was one of the 47 rounin so, so many issues, sort of a crossover/fusion, supposedly, unless he's got a well-written redemption arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29942268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shapelybutts/pseuds/Shapelybutts
Summary: Midoriya does not have a quirk. He doesn't. It's just a trick in his head, honestly. No one would really believe what's really going on if he told them...Except...One day, someone does, and everything goes to hell.
Relationships: none yet
Kudos: 8





	「Truth or Dare」

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this does have graphic violence fyi

Midoriya Izuku fidgeted nervously in his seat. He was towards the middle of the bus, and Kacchan was in the very back, glaring at him from between his two cronies. He could feel his gaze, feel it with the hairs on the back of his neck as they stood straight up. Izuku risked a glance behind him and confirmed the angry furrow of Kacchan’s brow. He flinched to face the front again and stared at the seat in front of him, a dark blue carpet covered in random colored squiggles and the occasional stain, with unseeing eyes.

Kacchan was mad. Scratch that, he was furious. Izuku knew he was, and he knew that Kacchan knew that he knew and was just stretching the radio silence on to torment him. It was a power play and Izuku couldn’t help but fall for it.

The mere idea that Kacchan was biding his time terrified Izuku – Kacchan was smart, and he had more than enough brains to screw Izuku over. Add some patience to that and Izuku wasn’t sure he’d come out of whatever Kacchan had in mind for him unscathed. He wasn’t even sure if he would come out with all body parts with all the anger Kacchan was radiating. But most of all, he wasn’t sure that the teachers would care.

Kacchan had a quirk, a powerful one – he could create nitroglycerin with his sweat glands and spark explosions from his palms. It was very handy in destroying Izuku’s notebooks and gakuran. He had a hero’s quirk, at least according to literally everyone he came across. It was perfect for combat or even rescues, a very versatile power.

Izuku had no quirk. He was quirkless. He had the extra toe joint to prove it, with x-rays from the doctor and pitying looks from his peers.  
Kacchan hated him for it.

He’d never really been sure why, really – he supposed that Kacchan had some sort of superiority complex, with how the way that he called his classmates ‘extras’ and how he belittled and bullied Izuku. The thing was, was that the teachers did nothing to curb his actions. They looked the other way when Kacchan burned all of Izuku’s school textbooks and notebooks and they ‘didn’t see him’ when he pushed Izuku around and punched him.

Izuku was alone when dealing with Kacchan. He didn’t dare tell his mother in case it ruined her close friendship with Bakugou Mitsuki, Kacchan’s mom, and he knew in his heart that none of the teachers would come to his aid when a student with such potential to become a hero was the perpetrator. Letting the whole situation continue as it has would most likely lead to Kacchan going to an elite hero school once he graduated from Orudera Middle, and that was something the school wanted as a bragging right.

Izuku’s eyes traced over a particular red squiggle on the carpet pattern before him. He wondered if it was a mistake by the manufacturer or not – it was quite long compared to the others, a little misplaced, and moving.

Wait. Shit.

The squiggle pulsed a little and an eye popped out at one end, a little white eye with a blood-red pupil. It blinked with carpet fuzz eyelashes and wriggled around on the seat’s back.

Izuku gulped and slapped his hands on top of it, shoving the seat in the process, and wished very hard for it to go away. The apparition under his palms writhed and squeaked. The kid in front of him let out a yelp at the jerk of the seat and turned around to berate him, but the rant and wild hand gestures and the jeers of the other kids did nothing to distract Izuku from his goal.

He had to make it disappear.

In, out… he breathed. Calm your mind and it’ll go away.

He focused. Realigned his thoughts like his therapist told him to. The wriggling under his palms subsided and ceased. He lifted his hands off the seat. The carpet caterpillar had disappeared. Izuku simply stared at the spot where it had been.

“Deku, you’re being freaky again!” Exclaimed one student in the seat across the aisle, Tanaka Kaede, a girl in his class who was a few months older than him. Izuku didn’t respond, nor even look at her. “Stop staring at the seat and look at your senpai when they talk to you!”

She’s barely a senpai, let alone a someone to look up to… Something whispered at the back of his head as the bus slowed down at the Wooden Statue Museum’s parking lot to figure out a place to stop.

Izuku ignored her. In, out.

Kaede cuffed him on the head, a bit more harshly than a friend would. Suzuki-sensei, the nearest teacher within sight, glanced up at the commotion then looked back down at his phone in pretend ignorance. There would be no help from him.

That jerk.

Izuku continued to ignore his classmates and stare at the seat in front of him and, when they realized that he wasn’t going to respond to their taunts, they eventually settled down and ignored him in turn.

He breathed evenly for a bit as he shoved away the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that was his curse.

Ever since he could remember, Izuku could see things. Little moving things that shouldn’t be moving, like ancient teapots and umbrellas and the statues in old shrines, strange creatures like the tales of old, transparent people, scary beasts that gave Izuku the chills. Some appeared and acted harmless and gave Izuku no problems. Some saw that he could see them and made his life even more difficult than it was already. For instance, a certain ghost.

Izuku, The ghost sighed from right beside him, his head emerging from the fabric of the seat. So bored,

“Shut up, Naka,” Izuku muttered under his breath, too low for anyone else to hear. “Can’t talk right now,”

Fine, The ghost pouted. But we’re gossiping like girls later, and you’re gonna tell me all about how much you hate everyone’s guts after that abuse.

Izuku grunted a non-answer. He really didn’t like this particular ghost, especially since it fed off of negative emotions. Something about its diet made his insides squirm in discomfort.

The ghost faded back into the seat, but Izuku could still feel his presence in the back of his mind. Naka was still here, just… not in the material plane at the moment.

“Alright kids, we’re going to get off the bus now, quiet down! Please take a visitor’s pass as you exit and remember to stay in sight of a teacher at all times!” Suzuki-sensei shouted over the commotion of forty-odd excited teenagers. He stood up and repeated himself as said commotion instead got louder. Izuku just sighed in exasperation as every kid tried to hurry off the bus all at once. He stayed in his seat as the front half managed to finally depart, only getting up when there was room to do so.

A blast into the air and Bakugou shoved his way past the remaining students in the back of the bus to Izuku.

“Get out of the way, shithead.” He leaned over and snarled into his face. There was something ominous about the way he said it, but it could’ve just been Izuku’s nerves over the look on Bakugou’s face. Or his constant conditioning to fear the burns of Bakugou’s quirk. Or his quiet anxiety over why Bakugou hadn’t harassed him the whole day. Maybe it was all of these.

And so Bakugou stalked past him, hands in his pockets, a cruel smirk on his lips.

Izuku just sighed. There was nothing he could do about that.

The class eventually managed to all disembark onto the sidewalk of Isarako Slope and they sprawled across it like ants. The teachers herded them towards the chūmon gate. Izuku took a moment to discretely look around at the surprising amount of people milling around.

There were quite a few, and the sheer chaos of intermingling schoolchildren on field trips make Izuku take a second to remember where he was at – Sengakuji, the graves of the Akoroshi, the forty-seven masterless rounin who had committed seppuku to restore their clan’s honor. The temple and gravesite were an extremely popular tourist spot; something about the honor and gore and the presence of rare pre-quirk history attracted people like bees to honey.

The chūmon gate wasn’t quite as large as Izuku expected it to be, but it was also somehow much larger than he could’ve ever expected. There was an ominous air about it. He gazed up at the inscription written on the gate… banshouzan. ‘Mountain of many pines’.

As Izuku crossed underneath, he felt… something… touch him, like he was walking into a cloud of steam or a wall of muggy air. He looked around in shock and spotted some ofuda on modern paper decorating the gate and the surrounding buildings in a perimeter.  
Were they the cause? No one used ofuda anymore…

But they must have been doing something to the area inside Sengakuji, there was no other explanation.

Ouch, ouch! Naka’s voice screeched. What was that?!

Izuku spun around to look for the ghost, hearing his voice several feet behind him. Naka was back behind the barrier, or whatever it was, clutching his head and violently fading in and out.

Izuku whipped his head back and forth, and upon seeing no one paying any attention to him, whispered, “Naka? What’s wrong?”

I can’t… I can’t go under the gate… Naka muttered. Someone here knows how to reject ghosts like me…

“Reject you? Who could do that?”

The ofuda, they’ve been replaced recently. Someone knows about yuurei. Naka said. He backed away to a good distance away from the gate, closer to the waiting bus, and hunched over in exaggerated sadness. I can’t go in with you. What a drag, I’m gonna miss out on all the fun…

Izuku huffed in agitation then turned around to get back to his classmates only to nearly run into another ghost. He barely avoided hitting him in time and tried his best to pretend not to see him, but risked a side-eyed glance at the amazingly intricate pre-quirk armor.

The ghost was fully clothed in completely black samurai dou, complete with dual katana and a wakizashi thrust in his belt. A fierce red menpou covered his face. He was glaring intensely at Naka, somehow entirely missing Izuku.

Do not come in. The ghost stated with a hand resting on the hilt of his katana. Or I will kill you.

Woah, no need to get so edgy, Naka spluttered and held his transparent hands up mockingly. You don’t need to worry about me, I can’t even cross the barrier.

Then leave. The new ghost said. There was no room for argument in his tone.

Izuku didn’t wait around to listen to the rest of their conversation. He passed by the large statue of Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, instead jogging to catch up with the rest of the class at the entrance to the main worship hallway. They were all mingling there on the steps with the teachers yelling instructions over the uninterested crowd. Izuku didn’t pay attention to any of it; he slunk around a shouting teacher and into the building.

Izuku knew that Naka would point him out if he’d stayed, and he really didn’t want that samurai to notice him. Not one bit. He was also sure that Naka would at least mention him as well, so he should be doing his best to get away from his classmates, where the samurai would likely look for him first.

Izuku didn’t know if the samurai could hurt him with his sword, but he didn’t want to find out. With his luck, the ghost would skewer him.  
An unassuming door stood to the side of the main hall. To Izuku, it looked like a good way to escape his classmates and teachers while still technically being in the building. It would be a good compromise to both obeying the teachers and escaping the ghost. Izuku didn’t even think before sliding the door shut behind him.

A long hall was before him. It seemed to turn a corner at the end, and his curiosity was burning. Was there more to the building? Izuku felt a little guilty about snooping, but figured that he could always claim he was lost if caught.

He walked for quite a bit. He turned corners, corners, and more corners before figuring out that the place was a literal maze. The rows of doors and the rooms behind them went on forever. But that didn’t fit with the outwards appearance – the building had only seemed so big from the entrance. Izuku prayed that he would find someone soon in the strangely empty halls to lead him to his school group.

He decided that he would try to open some doors in the hope that he would come across an occupied room. He tried over twenty doors that only led to empty offices and storage areas, and the silence of the place was starting to rattle around in his skull.

He was beginning to feel a bit anxious now. He should’ve found his way to somewhere by now, somewhere with people. Right? There was no way this building had so many rooms.

Right?

Izuku was standing before a sliding shoji door with plain paper screens trying to decide just what was going on when he felt a presence appear behind him. He spun around only to see a random eye staring right back at him.

It blinked once. Then it disappeared back into the wooden wall, just like it had never been there. A chill shivered its way down Izuku’s spine like ice water. Mokumokuren were sure signs of something bad nearby - the cursed eyeballs appeared around places with a high danger from ghosts or other, dare he say it, evil supernatural beings.

It was probably reacting to the samurai from earlier. Izuku should get out of sight.

He slid behind the shoji doors with haste to try and hide in the room as quickly as possible, only to walk right into another atmospheric change like the one at the chūmon. Shit, he didn’t want to be here. He had to find another hiding place. He tried to open the doors to leave the creepy room but was stopped by a prickling, electric charge that stabbed at his hands when he laid them on the door frames. He retreated backwards into the room in shock.

He was trapped.

“Come on,” Izuku groaned aloud, rubbing his stinging fingers. “Seriously?!” Why was it always him that got into these situations?! There was the random graveyard he had crossed a few years back to escape Bakugou where a ghost had tried to possess him. Another time he’d gone through a park for the same reason, only to literally run into a demonic specter that he barely managed to get away from. And then there was the time on that elementary school trip to the local art museum and that cursed painting –

There was something in the room with him.

Izuku spun around. He glared at everything he could see, trying to tell just what was setting off his senses.

The room was full of weird stuff. Old knick-knacks, an old parasol, cardboard boxes of woodblock etchings and other ancient pre-quirk art, some random tools and trinkets, and a strip of fraying shidenawa and a yellowing ofuda wrapped around a small, dark-stained wooden box.

Shidenawa? Ofuda? This couldn’t be good. That box was bad news, Izuku could feel it, its dark miasma permeating even through the various protections placed on it. The ghost of a sickly breeze wafted through the room and to Izuku, who wrinkled his nose in disgust at its stench. Something in there was dangerous. Dangerous and dark.

But there was also a pull. Whatever was in that box was tugging on Izuku’s mind, begging him to set it free. It wanted to be outside again, to stop being stuck in a tiny dark box with nothing for company, forgotten in the back room of an ancient shrine for ages and ages. It wanted to feel the breeze and see the sun again, to run and fly and laugh and live.

There was also a sense of repentance. Izuku had barely registered his sympathy for the trapped unknown being before he found himself standing in front of the box and pulling it down from the shelf.

With his bare hands.

Shit shit shit, Izuku thought to himself in the back of his head even as his surface thoughts sharpened into focusing on opening the object in his hands. The box hadn’t supernaturally reacted to his touch at all, so Izuku unwound the shidenawa and gently unwrapped the ofuda and placed them back on the shelf. His actions revealed a finely-worked kotoribako. A cursed puzzle box.

The trapped part of Izuku was screaming obscenities to his forethoughts and urging himself to stop fiddling with the kotoribako, but whatever was controlling his body and higher functions didn’t listen one bit. He could only watch as the Izuku in the forefront solved the complicated puzzle like it was nothing, his own fingers betraying him as they slid the puzzle pieces around until they made a click.

Izuku paused. Izuku opened the box.

Inside was a round, golf ball-sized orb covered in even more fading ofuda. The whole thing was wrapped in them, every millimeter of it, to the point that there wasn’t a single visible spot to tell just what the object was. Izuku picked it up with a shaking hand. It was soft.

Stop it you fucking idiot holy shit I’m gonna die oh god, was all that Izuku could think before the sound of people talking from the hallway distracted both him and whatever was controlling his body. He nearly dropped the box when the presence controlling his body faded slightly as the door began to open.

Izuku did something in his rising panic. The mere thought of being caught with a probably priceless artifact out of its box and in his hands frightened him beyond belief. It was incredibly irrational, Izuku knew, but the next thing he did was even more so. It was beyond irrational, it was just plain stupid. Izuku felt embarrassed for himself the instant he did it.

But at the moment, he could think of only one place to hide something so small. He shoved it into his mouth…

And swallowed.

Ohhhh shi-it, was Izuku’s only thought as the door opened fully. Standing behind it was a priest and the samurai yuurei. Both were glaring holes into him and the samurai was absolutely radiating waves of anger.

Izuku was suddenly hyper aware of the very much opened kotoribako being held in his hands, the ancient wrappings taken off and bundled on the shelf behind him.

“It, it was already open??” He stammered. There was no way they would believe that. He was in so much trouble. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I picked it up, I’m sorry, it’s like my hands moved on their own, I’m sorry-“

The priest raised a hand at him to stop his tirade while pinching the bridge of his nose. “Kid. I’m not going to lie. This looks bad.”

Izuku was ready to cry. He could already feel the tears building up behind his eyes. He’d he trespassed into a private room, he’d opened a priceless artifact, he’d all but destroyed the glue on the ancient shidenawa and ofuda coverings, he’d-

“…Okay. Kid, breathe for me… Shit, he’s crying, what do I do??”

Izuku hadn’t even realized that he was hyperventilating. He was shaking too, the box rattling in his hands at his panic. He shuddered one more time before deliberately inhaling much slower. He quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his gakuran sleeve. It wasn’t discrete at all, but like hell was Izuku gonna exit the room with fresh tears on his face.

“Nothing’s going to happen just yet.” The priest hesitantly reassured. “Just. Let’s go to another room, get your teacher, get the full story…” He rested a hand on Izuku’s shoulder and led him out. Izuku barely noticed the lack of barriers as he stepped through the door.

He was led down a hall to a small office Izuku had passed by earlier, though the trip somehow seemed much shorter than when he’d been wandering around previously. Izuku barely registered it.

The samurai ghost stalked in through the door behind them. Izuku could hear his teeth grinding from five feet away.

The minute you’re alone, boy… The samurai muttered. I’ll have to kill the monster that you absorbed.

Izuku stopped and stood ramrod straight. It made the box in his hands clack loudly in the otherwise silent room. The priest stopped too and looked at him quizzically.

“What’s wrong?” The man asked.

“I… I can’t be left alone,” Izuku stammered. “I…” He tried to find an excuse, but his spiraling thoughts only gave him one plausible option to have the priest stay with him. “I think I’ll kill myself if I’m left alone.”

Well, it wasn’t too far from the truth. Izuku’s… quirk? let him interact with spirits and ghosts, and the growling ghost behind them wanted to kill him. Therefore, his quirk, and by extension himself, would kill him the minute the priest was out of sight.

“A kid like you wouldn’t do such a thing,” The priest scoffed. Then he hesitated at Izuku’s stifled sobs and shaking frame. “Wait, did you really mean that…?”

“Ye-yes,” Izuku cried. Fat tears slid down his cheeks. He was scared. Ghosts and youkai had never wanted to kill him before. Sure, they played mean tricks on him and made his life even more miserable than it already was, but they had never actually tried to kill him. And the samurai yuurei was causing Izuku to break down with the pure unadulterated killing intent directed his way.

And though Izuku led a truly pathetic life, he didn’t really want to die. At least, not yet.

The priest gave a heavy sigh and sat behind the desk under the window. He gestured to the old-fashioned landline sitting to his side. It even had a cord attaching it to the rest of the machine. “Alright, I’ll just call security from the phone here then. They’ll contact your teacher too, and they’ll come here and we’ll all get this sorted out.” He leaned back in his chair. “You seem like a decent kid. Don’t worry too much yet.” Here he waved at the chair across from the desk. “Why don’t you sit down?”

All Izuku could do was nod at the command, sit rigidly in his chair, and place the box on the desk. He was done for. His teacher would tell the priest about his quirklessness and all of the sympathy he was getting from the priest would disappear like ash in the wind. No one wanted a quirkless kid, or anything to do with them. He was a worthless Deku, Bakugou was right, he was so useless…

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” The priest said, holding his hand over the receiver. His voice pierced through Izuku’s dark thoughts – he’d missed the priest dialing someone and his resulting discussion.

Izuku was so useless.

“Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku.” Izuku mumbled. “I came in with Orudera Middle School.” 

“He says his name is Midoriya Izuku and that he’s with the Orudera group.” The priest spoke into the receiver. There was a pause with faint mumbling. “I don’t… think I should leave him alone. I’m pretty sure it’s not the best idea right now.”

Another pause, some more mumbling.

“Why don’t you just bring his teacher here? This conversation should probably be done in private, anyways. No need to make the situation worse.” Said the priest. Apparently the person on the other side of the line agreed, and the priest hung up.

“Your teacher and the head priest will be here shortly to discuss what happened. Try and calm down.” The priest told Izuku.

They took some time awkwardly pretending not to see each other. Izuku tried his best not to break down and the priest got some paperwork and a pen from a drawer on the side of the desk. Izuku watched distantly from his chair as the man flipped a page onto its blank back and began writing.

Izuku could barely see straight, let alone try to read what the priest was writing.

The samurai yuurei was right behind him. Izuku could feel his angry aura and it felt like a furnace. His hands trembled and his back burned with the yuurei’s glare and he looked straight ahead at everything and nothing.

He was disassociating, he realized. Except it wasn’t quite disassociating, as he was hyper aware of the ghost behind him and how close he was to him.

“Here, have a sheet of paper.” Someone said from both very far away and right in front of him. A blank sheet of paper was placed onto his side of the desk. Izuku could see that it was being reused too, because he could see some black type showing through the white base.

He couldn’t look away. If he looked away, then he’d turn his head, and if he turned his head, then he would see the samurai ghost behind him. And then the ghost would know he could sense him. And then the game would be up.

“Midoriya-san?” A hand holding a pen waved in front of his face. “Do you want to write out what happened from your side? So it’s recorded?”

Izuku nodded absently and took the offered pen. He watched himself write that he’d gotten lost in the maze of corridors and rooms, and as such had tried opening doors to find someone to help him. He wrote that he’d had an urge to open the kotoribako, and heavily suggested that it could’ve been the result of a quirk.

And since Izuku was quirkless, he’d have had no defense against such a pull.

Before he knew it, Izuku had written all over the page. Focusing on the kanji and how to phrase things without giving away his ‘quirk’ had helped him return from that nowhere-land mental space. He discovered that he was grateful for the priest’s help, even if it wasn’t actually intentional.

A mental pull? The samurai murmured from behind him. Izuku’s awareness of the ghost returned with a jolt. Only the most sensitive should’ve been able to find the box, let alone unwrap the protection seals… Perhaps…

Izuku gulped and tried very hard to not flinch.

“May I read this before the others arrive?” The priest asked Izuku.

“Sure.” Izuku ground out. The priest raised an eyebrow and rotated Izuku’s paper to his side so he could read it.  
The other eyebrow rose.

“Do you know the story… or, rather, the legend of this box?” The priest abruptly asked and waved a hand at said box.

“N-no?” Izuku stammered, confused.

The priest sat there and scrutinized him. His dark eyes seemed to see and catalogue every move Izuku made, every twitch. Izuku fidgeted nervously.

“Well, in the remaining pre-quirk records of stories… well, the legends and myths of Japanese pre-quirk society, so stories of people and things, both imaginary and not, from a very, very long time ago…” The priest began.

The samurai growled. His aura flared. The priest looked up and shivered but didn’t seem to see the ghost at all, only his general vicinity.  
Izuku could only focus on not making any sounds or movements that could give him away, either to the priest or the samurai yuurei. He didn’t like where this was going.

“Ah, like that.” The priest said simply. “Most people would be able to feel at least something from the local ghost, if only a shiver.” He looked back at Izuku and his focus sharpened. “But you didn’t do anything. How curious.”

Izuku pressed his lips together. The priest could probably only see a thin line instead of a mouth at this point.

“So, tell me. Why didn’t you react? It could simply be because you’re too weak in spiritual sensing like most people, but I’m beginning to believe my other theory.” The priest continued. “You’re hiding your sensitivity to the supernatural. You purposely hid your reaction.”  
Izuku froze. His fidgeting froze. He stopped shifting in his seat. How did the priest figure it out? There was no way he could’ve possibly known, right?

“How did you know?” He blurted out before he could stop himself. He slapped a hand over his mouth the instant he said it. His eyes felt like they were bulging out of his skull.

“Ah! I knew it!” The priest suddenly grinned. It was a brisk change from the piercing gaze from earlier. Izuku could only stare as the man started spouting off various weird theories and conspiracies to no one in particular. A particularly memorable one was the priest’s idea that gods were real, or maybe they were actually aliens?

Izuku didn’t have any words.

The priest stopped ranting and looked at Izuku excitedly. He even reached over to grasp Izuku’s hands, which had been laying limp on the desk’s surface. “So, what does the local ghost look like? Tell me, please!”

“Uh.” Was all Izuku could get out. He felt like banging his head on something. The first time someone actually, actually believed in his quirk, and that was all he could say?

How useless.

“Midoriya-san?” The priest interrupted his musing.

Izuku looked behind him at the samurai ghost. It was the first time he’d acknowledged him since coming to the temple. “He’s dressed as a samurai with black armor.”

The priest’s eyes widened even more, if that were even possible. “Go on, tell me the details!” He urged. Izuku could practically see the perked ears and wagging tail.

“Well…” He started nervously. The samurai yuurei was looking at him. He honestly seemed confused, maybe a little shocked. “He’s got on a red menpou and has two katana and a wakizashi…”

You can… see me? The ghost asked. He didn’t seem to be angry anymore. Izuku, though he didn’t exactly relax, felt his tension ease. Just a bit. Actually, his shoulder muscles felt like rocks still.

“Yes?” Izuku answered. He wasn’t sure if he meant it to be a question or not.

“Oh man, this is so cool! You can hear him? This is awesome!” The priest gushed. “What’s his name?”

The ghost pulled himself together in an instant. Izuku didn’t bother to hide his flinch this time, wary of an attack.

But the yuurei simply shouted his name to the heavens. I am Ōishi Kuranosuke Yoshio! The leader of the Akoroshi, who avenged our master’s honor!

…Izuku could only stare. He looked nothing like his statue, was the only thought running through his head. Anything else would break his brain.

“Midoriya-san? Midoriya-san? Are you alright?” The priest asked. He sounded slightly panicked. “Midoriya-san? Damn, the ghost seemed mostly friendly… Maybe I should call the head priest again to get them to hurry up? Do we need an exorcism?”

Izuku shook his head to clear it, still staring in awe at the spectacle in front of him. “No, it’s just…” He looked wonderingly back up at the ghost – no, Ōishi-sama. The leader of the most legendary raid in Japan. The man. The myth. The legend. “He’s Oishi-sama.”

“Oh,” Said the priest after a moment, faintly. Izuku heard him sit back down, rather heavily. “Ōishi… sama…”

Then the priest stood up ramrod straight. “Ōishi-sama! I give my respects!” He said, ran around his desk, bowed profusely at perfect ninety-degree angles, then clapped his hands twice. Izuku thought it was rather strange that a Buddhist monk would clap, but was still impressed at the priest’s bowing precision.

Izuku suddenly realized that he should probably bow, too.

“Ōishi-sama! I too give my respects! Thank you for upholding the concept of ideal honor throughout the ages!” And he bowed twice, then clapped his hands twice as well. If the priest clapped, then maybe he should clap, too.

Stand up, boy. The ghost said after a moment. I’ve become tired of the old rituals of honor and integrity. They led to nothing but hate and rage.

“What?” Izuku said and lifted his head up in confusion. “But you’re…?”

Yes… The yuurei sighed, and suddenly seemed much older than before. Izuku was struck with the sudden understanding of just how old Ōishi was. The man died in 1703. Over three thousand years ago.

…and no. Ōishi continued. I’ve come to realize that rigid structures to a society and the harsh reprimands for disobeying taboos aren’t right. It may appear to be acceptable from the inside, but over the years… and as things changed… I’ve seen the worst of humanity. I’ve seen the best. Morals are fluid. They shouldn’t be confined.

Tears threatened to fall from Izuku’s eyes. The ghost’s statement fell true with him, down to his core.

He was quirkless. He was the lowest of the low, at least in this quirked society. No one ever stood up for him except for his mother and the occasional stranger.

And yet… this ghost… the spirit of the man who existed in pre-quirk history… felt exactly the same as Izuku about these things. Ōishi had seen the rise and fall of pre-quirk societies. He’d seen the past as it truly was, free of the bias of the history written by the victors. He probably knew more than any other person alive.

And he felt the same as Izuku.

“Ōishi-sama! I thank you for your profound words! I shall hold them in my heart forever!” Izuku bowed again.

“What did he say, Midoriya-san?” The priest murmured to Izuku from beside him. “What wisdom did he part to you?”

“He said that he disagrees with rigid social structures and that morality is fluid -“ Izuku began.

Ōishi snapped his head up. Izuku caught the movement and tensed. The priest gave Izuku a questioning look.

“Midoriya-san?”

Mokumokuren. Ōishi growled. Izuku jolted. Ōishi was looking at the wall behind Izuku and the priest. Izuku whipped his head around just in time to see several disembodied eyes embedded in the wall give a long blink then disappear.

Ōishi’s hand crept to his katana. His stance widened into something like a seasoned hero’s. Mokumokuren are signs of evil forces. The cursed object in you may have attracted such a force.

Cursed object? Izuku wondered. The hairs on his neck stood up. Is he talking about the kotoribako, or…?

Prepare yourself. Was all Ōishi got out before the wall broke open in a cacophony of sound and flying debris. Izuku had barely managed to cross his arms in front of him to protect his face, blocking several small pieces. Unfortunately, the priest, who had only just caught on that something was going on with the wall behind the desk, was immediately clipped on the head by a particularly large chunk of wood. The man was thrown back several feet before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“Oshō-san!” Izuku screamed. The priest lay motionless on the floor. Izuku tried to scramble over to him to check on him, but a sudden push from a deathly cold arm wrapped around his chest and forced him away from the unconscious man.

“Ōishi-sama! Let me see if he’s alright!” Izuku struggled in the samurai yuurei’s hold. “Let me -!”

Look, child. Ōishi growled and turned Izuku in his arms to face the ruined wall. Look before acting.

And Izuku looked. A… thing… a corpse was crawling through the wreckage. It was emaciated, with long, skinny arms and legs and a concave stomach. It’s eyes were filmy and sunken into flaccid pale skin, it had purple livor mortis patches, and it stank. It smelled like heaps of roadkill left to ferment in the sun. Izuku fought to swallow his bile.

A gaki, Ōishi cursed. One has arrived, then. He drew his katana with a shriek of metal and folded black steel and slid a foot back into a perfect chūdan. Then, before Izuku could even begin to register the unsheathed blade, Ōishi fell into a hassou and moved.

He appeared behind the corpse. His blade was lowered, as if the ghost had struck a hit, but the gaki only shook and squealed. The corpse paused a moment to collect its bearings before shaking itself like a dog shakes off water. Ōishi’s had been sure, but it didn’t stop the monster.

Ōishi glanced behind him and – 

The gaki rushed the fallen priest. It crawled on all fours like some demented spirit.

Ōishi swore but did nothing to stop it.

It’s possessed a physical body. I can only distract it. He said. Izuku could only watch in horror as the gaki crawled all over the priest and bit off a chunk of his arm. With its teeth.

Blood gushed from the priest’s wound, lots of it. Izuku slapped a hand over his mouth to hold back a scream and scrambled back in terror. His back hit the wall and that was as far as he could go, but he still pressed as much of his body against the surface as he could in an instinct to get as far away from the monster as possible.

The priest had woken up. From the pain, presumably – he started screaming, thrashing, trying to push the gaki off, but it was a futile effort. Every punch sounded like hitting stone, resounding in the dust-filled room with loud thumps of fist against immovable decaying flesh. The gaki didn’t get off the priest and continued to tear into his body like a famished beast.

“Hungry, hungry…” Izuku heard from the corpse between its bites and the screams of the poor man.

Izuku had never seen a ghost or spirit like this. The majority he’d seen over the years weren’t so chaotically evil, nor so monstrous, so terrifying. The scariest one he’d met so far had been a poltergeist – mischievous and slightly malicious at the worst. Nothing like the creature before him.

Izuku could only wail as he watched the horror happening before his eyes. Blood was everywhere, arterial spray decorating the walls in Pollock splatters. Some landed on him as the gaki went for the neck and Izuku couldn’t take it anymore.

He scrambled to the door. He grabbed the shoji screen’s edge. He slid the door open.

A priest was standing outside. Several priests, in fact, and some other bystanders as well. They looked panicked, pounding at the door frame, shouting things unintelligible. Izuku ran forward to get out, get out, get out…

And smashed into an invisible wall.

“Help me!” He screamed. He clawed against the barrier ineffectively. “Help me!”

At the sight of him and the gory scene behind him the priests grew frantic. They doubled their efforts to get in, tripled them, but the barrier was still in place – only the faint sounds of their shouting got through.

Sound can get through… Izuku thought wildly. What hero can produce enough sound to hurt the gaki?

Present Mic.

Now, Izuku was normally a quiet boy. This scenario, however, required more.

“Get Present Mic!” He screamed as loud as he could at the people on the other side of the door. “Sound can get through!”

One of the people outside the door, a younger priest by the looks of him, paused and gained an expression of sudden understanding. Izuku could see it in his face, the moment he realized the futility of the physical attacks on the barrier.

“Get Present Mic! Present Mic!” He yelled. The young priest nodded, a gleam of hope flashing through his eyes before he turned…

And ran away.

“No…” Izuku whined, despairing and high-pitched. “We need Present Mic…!”

Or I’ll die. Is what Izuku thought.

The screaming behind him fell in volume, then stopped. Izuku’s heart stopped as well at the sudden, abrupt, terrifying silence that came.  
It could only really mean one thing – the priest, the man who’d, despite catching Izuku red-handed destroying a priceless treasure, ended up comforting him and believing in his quirk. He’d believed in his quirk, in Izuku.

And now he was dead.

Then the munching sounds started again.

Izuku flinched, violently, suddenly.

The gaki is still here, Said Ōishi. To be honest, Izuku had forgotten about him, he’d been so quiet. Izuku spun around to scream at him to help him, do anything, something, but paused at the sight of the yuurei.

Ōishi was, to put it in words, was dripping with malice. Dark splotches of red-black miasma wafted out of the ghost’s body and wisped into the air. All of the hatred Ōishi was pouring out was directed at the gaki. Izuku could feel the intent and killing aura like lava – hot, burning, all-consuming, and all-devouring.

Izuku froze. He could not move, not even a twitch. He couldn’t even look at the gaki, though he could see it out of the corner of an eye.  
Blood was everywhere. Malice covered Ōishi. Izuku could not look away.

Ōishi prepared his sword.

Once the gaki finishes its task, its focus… He began. It will need to find a new source of fuel.

Izuku trembled. Ōishi spared a glance towards him, then refocused on the feasting corpse. His black katana flickered for a split second – a glimpse of light flashing along the blade and crackling hatred radiating out of the tsuka, the handle.

But… Ōishi continued. During the moment it lacks a focus and the time it finds one…

The gaki was licking the blood off of its hands. Only bloody bones and cartilage chunks were left of the priest.

Izuku had never learned his name.

There is a window of opportunity. Ōishi finished. And he moved.

The gaki started to look up. Its hands were clean. A flash of raw, malicious power, something Izuku had never felt before in all his short life, pulsed from Ōishi and throughout the room. He raised his hands before him to protect himself, a desperate last-moment defensive instinct…

Ōishi appeared behind the corpse. Silence.

The corpse fell over. The corpse remained crouching. It blinked.

Wait… Izuku thought. There can’t be two of them. There can’t.

But there the corpse was, fallen before itself like all its strings were cut. And yet, and yet, the corpse was still there, looking around dazedly.

Ōishi turned. The corpse that was moving looked at the ghost and shrieked a shrill, terrible sound. Izuku crouched into fetal position and covered his ears. It didn’t help his ears any. The screech permeated the room and his brain and everything was terrible, terrible, terrible… 

And then… a loud squelch. A slide of something… wet… and a messy-sounding thunk. And all was quiet. After a long, agonizing moment, Izuku dared to look up.

Ōishi stood in front of him, his sword dripping with a black tar-like substance. The red-black malice was gone. The gaki’s second body, the moving one, had been sliced clean in half. Before Izuku’s eyes the bisected body began disintegrating. Its black blood dissolved into the air like ash, and soon nothing remained of it, save for the unmoving corpse fallen over the remains of the dead priest.

The gaki is dead. Ōishi said. He flicked his sword and the blood on it flew off to the side, dissolving into nothing into midair. Izuku flinched.  
Ōishi sighed. For one so young to see such a thing… Perhaps it was for the best that no sorcerer has been born for such a long time…

“S-sorcerer?” Izuku stammered absently. His head felt like he was in a cloud. Nothing felt real, despite the evidence in front of him. All he could do was stare at the ghost’s feet, though it didn’t really feel like he was looking at anything at all.

A wall of noise coming from all around him, especially from the door, caused him to flinch again. Multiple people were shouting and screaming, the wail of a distant ambulance cried through the air, and hands were suddenly on his shoulders and shaking him and…

Izuku cried out and clawed at the solid body before him. The other person yelped and lurched back. The hands didn’t return.

The barrier was released… Ōishi spoke from behind him. A cold hand – no no nonono the gaki was here, the corpse was here, it had its hands on him, he was going to die die die –

Calm, child. Ōishi demanded. It is only me. He pulsed something that felt a little like protectiveness and safety into Izuku. Izuku fell sideways like a broken puppet and painfully onto the hard wooden floor. He felt rather than heard Ōishi sigh beside him.

“Midoriya! Midoriya? Can you hear me?” Called out a worried voice from nearby, somewhere close. Izuku flinched.

“Ah, shit, he’s in shock…” The voice said. Izuku was miles away.

“Get him a shock blanket and onto one of the ambulances, now!” Someone else ordered.

Izuku clocked out.


End file.
